To Satisfy the Sharp Desire
by Dipenates
Summary: When Nick Stokes is recovering from being kidnapped and buried alive, he realises that his experience has parallels in the shooting at Rosslyn. Nick/Greg


**To Satisfy the Sharp Desire **

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Author's note: **

Another post-Grave Danger piece to be a companion to "All which it Inherit shall Dissolve".

West Wing: spoilers through 2.01: In the Shadow of Two Gunmen

CSI: spoilers for 5.24: Grave Danger

**Warnings:** In the episode "Grave Danger", Nick was buried alive and almost eaten by fire ants. This deals with that. Also: slash.

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It was Greg who was more interested in politics. Who sometimes watched Capital Beat and C-SPAN and had endless arguments with their friend James Wilkes about whether the President or this Governor or that Governor was doing enough on GLBT rights.

("He's got a lousy record." James set down his wine glass resolutely.

"Oh, please." Greg's eyes were narrowed in a way that made Nick almost roll his. This was such a familiar argument that Nick could almost recite both parts from memory. "What was he supposed to do with a Republican Congress?"

"Grow some balls?" James offered. "Send someone other than Sam Seaborn to fight with the military over _Don't Ask, Don't Tell_. Tell Clancy Bangert to fuck off. Not define marriage at the federal level as one man, one woman. Come out against that Cameron gays in the military bill."

"For real?" Greg poured more wine into all their glasses, spilling some on the table. "That Cameron bill never even got voted on. Coming out against it would have given it the oxygen of publicity."

"Yes, Greg." James's voice was as patient as if he was speaking to a child. "I can read and repeat a New York Times editorial as well as the next man."

Greg had the grace to blush. "Well, I just think that the guy is pretty stand-up. And he has a few senior gay staffers. That has to count for something."

James's face scrunched in disbelief. "Who?"

Greg pushed his tongue into his cheek. Savoured his moment as the man with the inside scoop. "My college roommate Andrew interned for Congresswoman Wyatt."

"Toby Ziegler's ex-wife?"

Greg nodded. "Apparently Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn had some kind of fling."

James's mouth fell open. "Shut up. The Deputy Chief of Staff and the Deputy Communications Director? Shut _up._")

Nick was interested in the politics that affected his community but there was something intimidatingly _large _about national politics. So many characters, it was like keeping track of a particularly involved daytime soap opera. Esoteric processes and words that meant the opposite of what it sounded like they meant. Such a multitude of opinions, it was like drowning in words to even go online and try to read all of the major metropolitan newspapers, let alone the blogs and news magazines.

But it was Nick, and not Greg, who had a box full of yellowing profiles of Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn and CJ Cregg stashed deep in his wardrobe. Who had a whole folder of bookmarks of online articles about Rosslyn and the impact of the shooting on the staff in the West Wing.

His PEAP counsellor had shifted uneasily when he talked about Rosslyn, as though the shooting of the President and Josh Lyman was a morbid, tabloid-y thing to be interested in. She had expertly rerouted the conversation back to the plexiglass box – _always back to the box – _as though he was a naughty boy who was using a drink of water as an excuse from getting out of bed when he should be asleep.

In the gaps between the words of those articles, though, Nick could identify with Lyman in a way he found difficult to do with anyone else. Josh Lyman had been hurt, at work, by someone who put him in harm's way just because of the kind of job that he did. He had been collateral damage in the execution of someone else's irrational, malevolent fantasy.

The lack of personal vendetta was almost the most disturbing thing to Nick about Walter Gordon's actions. He had depersonalised the CSI in that box – _always back to the box ­_– so much that it literally hadn't mattered to him which one of them ended up in there.

He wondered if that's what it had been like for Lyman. To be filled with hot lead, to spend fourteen hours in an operating room, because you were standing in the same general area as the President's daughter and her black boyfriend. To know that it wasn't about you, and yet you were the one who was paying the price in physiotherapy and wrangling with insurance companies and speaking to a counsellor and trying to avoid the claustrophobic curiosity of your colleagues.

He wondered if Lyman had to control a flinch when he walked with the President from speaking events to the motorcade, the way he did when he thought about going underground or the Nevada wind blew the scent of dirt into his nostrils. Or if the sound of a car backfiring or the screaming of the people who lined the ropeline made something deep inside him quail.

And then, seeing Josh Lyman return to work and appearing on TV made him hope. Hope that once his angry skin had recovered from the brutal assault of the fire ants, that he could go back to the Crime Lab. That he would be able to go out on a solo call again and work, with chills crawling up and down his spine but without literally puking in fear. And then one day, that maybe the chills would be gone.


End file.
